Someone Care
by AlongTheBinding
Summary: Everything was fake! He could get away with murder. No one cared, so why should he? And they were an easy target. A possible look into Bob Sheldon!


**Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders.**

**AN: I was reading this book and this idea randomly came to me. This was a challenge for me because I hate his character with extreme loathing and never fully got the idea of the whole "no one told him no" thing. But, when an idea randomly hits you while reading a novel for school, one must write it down. There was a part in the book where Ponyboy and Randy are talking in the car before the rumble and Randy says something along the lines as you have money and the world hates you. And Ponyboy replies, something along the lines as, you have money and you hate the world. This is sort of following that idea combined with the whole no one ever told Bob no and when Cherry talks about what it's like to be a Soc and the whole rat-race thing. The sequence of events are sort of fuzzy, but the point of this is Bob Sheldon's thoughts. Fellow Outsiders-lovers, I give you one take on the inner workings of Bob Sheldon!**

***a small voice rings out from the darkness "it's scary in here"***

* * *

Socs don't feel. They're too cool to feel. They forgot how, like Greasers forgot how to cry. Everything was so damn refined! Bury it deep, build up those walls, hide behind the masks and facades and vizards and acts. Suppress everything, wind yourself up so tight, until you feel like you're about to explode.

There was no solid ground beneath Bob Sheldon's feet. There never was. There were never any lines. The world was his and he conquered it like an imperialist overlord. He was Bob Fucking Sheldon, big-time super Soc! King of the world! He had to act the part. He was expected to.

He glanced with disdain and silent seething loathing at the fellow Socs in the blue Mustang as they circled the park, the cool evening air blowing in his face. He hated them! He hated everyone on the West Side because they were like him and they were content with their superficial lives. Nothing was real! Everything was fake! Everything was artificial! Nothing was tangible and it was like this swirling void that threatened to swallow him whole. He was on a downward spiral and he felt himself being consumed. And he couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop himself. He was powerless against it and he wanted someone, needed someone to help, to stop it, to stop him, to care, but nobody would!

He hated his best buddy, Randy, for always jumping at his command, for his unquestioning obediance, for always sticking by his side even when he was wrong. He hated his girlfriend, Cherry, because he knew she was as plastic as her friends and the other people on the West Side. And like their fellow Socs and everything else in their life, their relationship felt like it didn't matter, like it was nothing, fake, artificial.

His parents would have given him the moon! He could get away with murder! He did not want the fucking moon! He did not want everything handed to him on a silver platter! He got drunk off his ass one time, sure they would have to say something! Desperate to have them call him on it, hit the roof, be pissed, anything! React! Instead, they said it was their fault, something they must have done! He hated them, too!

And he hated Greasers because they were easy to hate. They were an easy way to channel all of his hatred and nobody cared if he did! Greasers, these tough hoods, scared people, but he wasn't afraid! He was Bob Fucking Sheldon, fearless, invincible, smart, handsome, tough Bob Sheldon! More so than any of them white trash! And they made for such easy targets! They were the perfect outlets for the forbidden nameless tides that washed over him and that yet he could never express. And he could get away with it, too. No repercussions. But he wanted the repercussions.

No one cared, so why should he? Even Cherry walked away from him to be with the lowest of the low! So what did that make him? What did that fucking make him!

They spotted those damn Greasers who stole their girls, those stupid kids who were by themselves and always acted like they weren't scared. But they were small, worthless, and they were outnumbered five-to-two. Who the hell did they think they were? They were nothing! Grimly, Bob thought to himself, they could do whatever the hell they wanted to do to them, _kill_ them and nobody would care. Not about what he did or about those Greasy haired trash! And maybe that one who talked with his girl, the idiot who didn't have the brains enough to bring a coat, was right! He and his buds were nothing but white trash with Mustangs and madras! Well, no one might have cared, but they still had more than these stupid brats ever would! And he burned with unprecedented hatred, incessant rage. He felt it so powerfully, so passionately and keenly and with it this persistent urge. It started like an irritating itch he couldn't scratch and it grew unbearably. He was Bob Fucking Sheldon! And that should mean something, bear some weight! They should fucking care! Someone should fucking care!

He sought escape in a bottle to drown all he could never express, to harden himself, to be invincible! And he sought release in every punch he threw at the worthless excuse for human beings, those two white-trash who now served as his scapegoats for his hatred of the whole world around him! And if he focused on those miserable bastards he didn't have to focus on himself. But it was only ever a momentary release. It was superficial like his life. It didn't mean anything. No one cared. And as soon as it washed over him, the relief was gone.

Drown it all, he thought, as he held one of the struggling stupid coatless Greaser under water in the fountain, Drown the apathy, the indifference, the numbing buzz and the bottles, the walls and masks, the coldness and refinement and everything and everyone he hated! Care! Just care! Someone fucking care!

And then he felt the searing pain and welcomed it. It throbbed like a heart beat as he felt his own give out. And he thought faintly, funny, I didn't think I had one. He always knew he'd go out being stabbed in the back, but he thought it would've been more figuratively.

The searing, blinding pain, the agony! He felt himself being emptied, conscious of it flowing from him until he was no more, finally consumed by this nameless beast. And he collapsed. For the first time in his life, he felt solid ground below him.

Someone cared. It might not have been about him. But someone cared, if only a small part of it, about his actions, what he did. In the end, in a twisted way, as he breathed his last breaths, he got what he always wanted.


End file.
